AMSilk Founder Prof. Thomas Scheibel Receives DECHEMA Award

Planegg, Germany, November 29, 2013 / B3C newswire / - AMSilk’s co-founder Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheibel receives the 2013 DECHEMA award of the Max-Buchner-Research-Foundation for his work on spider silk. The award will be presented at a special festive event at DECHEMA headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany on November 29th 2013.

DECHEMA is the German Society for Chemical Technology and Biotechnology. The DECHEMA award includes price money of 20.000 Euro.

Prof. Scheibel is one the world’s leading scientists studying how spider silk works and how it can be manufactured by biotechnological processes. While he is focused on basic research, the results of his work laid the foundation for AMSilk, a German company which focuses on turning state-of-art research results into real life products, such as high performance fibers, wound care products and medical devices. One of his key discoveries is that silicone implants coated with recombinant spider silk protein are better accepted by the body and thereby undesirable side effects are reduced.

Prof. Scheibel is full professor at the chair of biomaterials at the University of Bayreuth in Germany.

About AMSilkSpider silk has attracted man's interest for thousands of years, mainly due to its toughness and elasticity. The silk is biocompatible and can be used in formulations for specialized coatings, films, nonwovens and in pharmaceuticals. Spider silk has evolved over millions of years resulting in a combination of properties that far exceed any man-made material. AMSilk has developed a proprietary process for producing spider silk on an industrial scale. In March 2013 AMSilk had already announced that the company has produced the world’s first competitive man-made spider silk fiber, called Biosteel®, which is made entirely from recombinant silk proteins.

AMSilk was founded in 2008 and is located at the IZB in Planegg near Munich. AMSilk's investors are MIG Funds and AT Newtec, Munich. Projects are partially funded through grants from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology with project management provided by the PTJ and VDI.